Among the common ways of portraying Reformation divides are the following categories: Magisterial vs Radical Reformations; or a “church type” vs a “sect type” of reform. This essay offers an alternative view. It underscores the differences between Lutherans and Anglicans on one side; and the Reformed, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfelders on the other. The Lutherans, like the Anglicans under Henry VIII, worshipped in altar-centered churches which were Roman Catholic in appearance. They presented themselves as reformers of Catholic errors of the late Middle Ages. By contrast, when the Reformed, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfelders met for worship, it was in unadorned Bible-centered meeting houses. The Anabaptists were targeted for martyrdom by the decree of the Holy Roman Empire of 1529 against Wiedertäufer (“rebaptists”). Contrary to the later memory that they practiced a theology of martyrdom, the preference of apprehended Anabaptists was to recant.

描绘宗教改革分歧的常见方式有以下几类：权威改革与激进改革；或“教会式”与“教派式”的改革。本文提供了另一种观点。它一方面强调了路德宗和英国国教之间的差异；另一方面是改革宗、再洗礼派和施文克费尔德派。与亨利八世统治下的圣公会一样，路德会教徒在 以祭坛为中心的教堂中进行礼拜，这些教堂的外观是罗马天主教徒。他们自称是中世纪晚期天主教错误的改革者。相比之下，当改革宗、再洗礼派和施文克费尔德聚会敬拜时，是在朴素的以圣经为中心的聚会场所。1529 年神圣罗马帝国颁布的针对Wiedertäufer的法令将再洗礼派定为殉难的目标（“重洗者”）。与后来他们实践殉道神学的记忆相反，被逮捕的重洗派信徒更倾向于放弃。